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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
The social contract against disorder and superficial order
Rousseau's political doctrine, in particular his doctrine of the social contract, can be viewed as a quest for a rational solution to the problem of disorder. As I have attempted to show in the second part of this work, the term disorder has three connotations. Disorder occurs when men's station in society is not the one which is appropriate for them. Disorder is also inevitable when men regard each other as rivals in a contest for distinction, pre-eminence and preferment. Finally, disorder exists within the individual when his inner life is controlled by unregulated passions. The moral condition of men who live in a society without order is unenviable and wretched.
Driven by the insatiable desire to gain preferment, they seek happiness which will always remain beyond their reach. A man's desire will always exceed what he is capable of and he can never find the peace and self-discipline which alone can bring happiness. Imagination is for ever pushing back the frontiers of what is thought to be possible and so men are caught up in a quest which allows them no rest.
But the object which seemed within our grasp flies quicker than we can follow; when we think we have grasped it, it transforms itself and is again far ahead of us. We no longer perceive the country we have traversed, and we think nothing of it; that which lies before us becomes vaster and stretches still before us.
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